NORTH BEND – Nature seems to have sneaked indoors at a new education center that, when finished, will explain the life cycle of one of the region’s most important resources – water.

In fact, nature and the heavy smell of the outdoors are everywhere at the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, south of North Bend.

The Forest Court is filled with maples, ferns and other native plants, many of which were transplanted from the watershed itself. Drops of water will pound out nature’s music on drums.

A walkway is covered with a living roof of small plants.

Seattle Mayor Paul Schell presided over an invitation-only dedication of the $6 million center. The public can tour the facility at open houses this weekend.The center will be operated by Seattle Public Utilities, which also manages the 90,000-acre watershed that provides water to about 1.25 million residents of Seattle and King County. “It’s a center to celebrate water,” said Ralph Naess, an educator with Seattle Public Utilities.

For the time being, visitors will have to do without one key feature – interpretive exhibits designed to explain where water comes from and how it’s used.

“They are the meat of the center, particularly for drop-in visitors,” said Joel Sisolak, who is directing a private fund-raising campaign for the Friends of the Cedar River Watershed.

The city of Seattle contributed $4 million to build the center. But the private campaign to raise another $2 million is short of its goal by about $1 million – money needed for the exhibits, including a waterfall.

Sisolak expects to have the money raised and exhibits in place by early next year.

In the meantime, visitors will see mock-ups of some of the exhibits in the still-incomplete exhibition hall. But plenty of activities are planned in the center’s lab and research library for the open house and later.

About 30,000 children visit the watershed on school tours every year, and now they’ll have the chance to do interactive classroom work there.

Initial visitors will see the scope of the center, if not its entire content. The center, overlooking Rattlesnake Lake, has five main buildings with nearly 10,000 square feet of space. A corps of about 50 volunteers will greet visitors, explain exhibits and assist in the research library. Five or six volunteers will be needed every weekend.

Public tours will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 6-7. Staff will present slide shows and videos, and activities are planned in the learning lab and the research library.